A hole 230 feet wide that has been burning for more than 50 years is located close to the 350-person village of Darvaza in Turkmenistan’s scorching, vast Karakum desert. The fiery glow from the crater, known to the locals as “The Gates of Hell,” can be seen for miles around, despite the crater’s official name being the Darvaza gas crater.
When a Soviet drilling rig unintentionally punched into a large subterranean natural gas cavern in 1971, the ground collapsed and the drilling rig itself fell in, leaving the Gates of Hell crater. A pocket of gas had been punctured, and toxic fumes were leaking out at a frightening rate.
The Soviets decided to light the hole on fire in order to prevent a possible environmental disaster, believing that the fire would go out in a few weeks. The flaming pit is still active decades later. It is thought that somewhere down there, on the other side of the “Gates of Hell,” is still the Soviet drilling rig.
Amazingly, people travel into the desert to see the crater in all its blazing glory despite the site’s ominous name and constant flames. Wild camping in the surrounding desert is becoming more and more popular.
However, the burning crater might not have a clear destiny. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov gave the Turkmenistan government instructions to start looking into ways to put out the fire in January 2022.
